Kyoo-ree-oh-z of the week #80

Clippings, endnotes and other ephemera

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The great thing about cavoodles is they don’t shed their hair. Our cavoodle, Alfie, is therefore allowed to sit on the sofa with us, unless we are eating food.

Alfie likes nothing better than playing. When I get home from work, I change my clothes and then we play a game where he jumps for one of his toys or I roll him over on the ground. I have found myself looking forward to this time as it is a good way of transitioning from work to home. And as all dog owners know, there is no purer and more wholesome joy than making a dog happy.

This week’s Curios include a great blog, a research suggestion, an analysis of a book review and much more.

Ongoing teacher shortage of the week

The current teacher shortage is not unique to Australia and neither are the factors driving it. Similarly, the veiled way we talk about some of the fundamental issues is fascinating.

In a piece by Courtney Withers for the Australian ABC, a key issue is “burnout,” Withers introduces us to Dr Saul Karnovsky:

“He believes more psychologists, counsellors and social workers are desperately needed in schools to help ease the emotional labour of teachers.”

Emotional labour? What could be causing it? Perhaps it is because the teachers don’t feel safe.

According to a piece by Christopher Harris and Lucy Carroll in The Sydney Morning Herald:

“More than 800 school students were suspended every week last year amid a classroom behaviour crisis that is leading to principals issuing sanctions for physical violence, aggression and assault.”

It is interesting to read the term ‘behaviour crisis’ and the correct interpretation that suspensions imply there is bad behaviour in schools, rather than the odd interpretation of certain academics that suspensions imply schools are somehow not meeting the needs of students.

The backdrop of a behaviour crisis would certainly go some way to explaining why teachers may be leaving the profession. What else is there?

An anonymous teacher quoted by the Herald Sun commented on Victoria’s own teacher shortage:

“I just felt so overworked and stressed all the time. My weekends were spent at my computer preparing lesson plans and marking assignments… On top of that, teachers are dealing with mass shortages, aggressive parents, being underpaid and students being out of control.”

The tragic element of this is that there are at least partial solutions to these problems. No one fix is a panacea, but taken collectively, they can reduce the sheer weight of the problems teachers face. For example, collaborative planning can reduce the amount of time spent preparing lessons and there is little evidence to support the amount of marking teachers traditionally do. We should do less of it, more strategically.

There are also well-known strategies involving the use of routines, rules and consequences, including mild negative consequences for mildly negative behaviours, that work for most students, most of the time. But these are ‘authoritarian’ or ‘oppressive’ or something and so teachers must continue to struggle.

Book review of the week

I don’t often write about book reviews. It’s too much of a second order derivative for me. However, I felt I had to write about this one because it was just so good.